Resources for 1840s/earlier Fireplace and Brick Oven Construction?

[Hearthpaws]

My fiancé and I recently bought an old house (b. 1815?) across from my parents. It has a central chimney that has, unfortunately, had the center portion of the chimney torn out. So imagine the top poking out of the roof is in tact, and the foundation tied to the ground is intact, but the chimney running through the 2 floors is gone (go figure). The plan is to put the center section of the chimney back, but I'm thinking it may require a complete overhaul.

There is also a second fireplace and chimney we are hoping to add to match a later addition (architecture circa 1830/1840).

I'd like to keep the reconstruction of both as true to history as possible, to maintain the historical integrity of the home. Though I have some experience making chimneys for exterior buildings (greenhouses etc.) this will be my first time taking on reconstructing a workable interior fireplace.

Additionally, if the fireplace and chimney have to be entirely rebuilt, I would like to make sure that at least one can actually be cooked in as a brick oven, complete with iron door.

I've been looking around at various resources, but nothing really covers earlier constructions, and no one seems to have anything on firebrick ovens EXCEPT outdoor pizza ovens, which isn't what we want. I've got local individuals with great masonry skills but they aren't used to reconstructing something like this, so any good resources would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[mellow]

Do you have a Historical Society where you are located you could ask?

Preserving the Exterior Masonry on Your Historic Building | Wisconsin Historical Society

Learn the basics of protecting old bricks and mortar.

www.wisconsinhistory.org

 

[begreen]

This could be a big challenge. Some of the old fireplaces had timbers going through them and certainly wouldn't pass code today. @Ashful is sure to chime in soon on this. He has studied and worked on old houses.

In some cases, depending on what is left, a metal chimney can be anchored to the stub coming off of the fireplace and then run up through the floors with firestops and out the roof.

 

[Hearthpaws]

Do you have a Historical Society where you are located you could ask?

Preserving the Exterior Masonry on Your Historic Building | Wisconsin Historical Society

Learn the basics of protecting old bricks and mortar.

www.wisconsinhistory.org

My local historical society doesn't have any resources of its own, unfortunately. The suggestion is generally to start anew. I did think someone else's historical society might be more useful, though, but I wasn't sure who I should be reaching out to.

 

[Hearthpaws]

This could be a big challenge. Some of the old fireplaces had timbers going through them and certainly wouldn't pass code today. @Ashful is sure to chime in soon on this. He has studied and worked on old houses.

In some cases, depending on what is left, a metal chimney can be anchored to the stub coming off of the fireplace and then run up through the floors with firestops and out the roof.

Thanks. I hope he joins in soon, then.
It doesn't appear to have any timber throughout it, just judging by what is exposed, which is quite a lot, to be honest.

 

[bholler]

My fiancé and I recently bought an old house (b. 1815?) across from my parents. It has a central chimney that has, unfortunately, had the center portion of the chimney torn out. So imagine the top poking out of the roof is in tact, and the foundation tied to the ground is intact, but the chimney running through the 2 floors is gone (go figure). The plan is to put the center section of the chimney back, but I'm thinking it may require a complete overhaul.

There is also a second fireplace and chimney we are hoping to add to match a later addition (architecture circa 1830/1840).

I'd like to keep the reconstruction of both as true to history as possible, to maintain the historical integrity of the home. Though I have some experience making chimneys for exterior buildings (greenhouses etc.) this will be my first time taking on reconstructing a workable interior fireplace.

Additionally, if the fireplace and chimney have to be entirely rebuilt, I would like to make sure that at least one can actually be cooked in as a brick oven, complete with iron door.

I've been looking around at various resources, but nothing really covers earlier constructions, and no one seems to have anything on firebrick ovens EXCEPT outdoor pizza ovens, which isn't what we want. I've got local individuals with great masonry skills but they aren't used to reconstructing something like this, so any good resources would be appreciated. Thanks.

You are not going to be able to build completely historically accurate. You will still need to meet code but you can make it look pretty close. There were all different kinds of ovens made years ago some pretty similar to pizza ovens. Some beehive ovens some rat tail etc. Pretty much none at the time had doors honestly.

 

[Kevin Weis]

Hope you find a restoration company to do the work. They're out there. If your not near a major city with historical roots you may have to go some distance to find someone. This specialized masonry work.

 

[Hearthpaws]

Hope you find a restoration company to do the work. They're out there. If your not near a major city with historical roots you may have to go some distance to find someone. This specialized masonry work.

Yeah, I'm in Ohio. I don't see anything close locally to what would be required for this. Was kind of hoping to work with the very skilled people we have here. I've got a local mason who is massively impressive. He's willing to take on the job, but needs some references, he said. At this point, this seems my best option. I don't have oodles to spend on hiring out of state.

 

[bholler]

Yeah, I'm in Ohio. I don't see anything close locally to what would be required for this. Was kind of hoping to work with the very skilled people we have here. I've got a local mason who is massively impressive. He's willing to take on the job, but needs some references, he said. At this point, this seems my best option. I don't have oodles to spend on hiring out of state.

You are going to spend oodles on this. I would expect prices to start around 30k.

But look up behive and rat tail ovens they were the most common forms atleast in pa around that time. Although that is getting pretty late. Very few houses would have had a masonry oven at that point. And those that did would usually have them in a summer kitchen or out building

 

[Hearthpaws]

You are going to spend oodles on this. I would expect prices to start around 30k.

But look up behive and rat tail ovens they were the most common forms atleast in pa around that time. Although that is getting pretty late. Very few houses would have had a masonry oven at that point. And those that did would usually have them in a summer kitchen or out building

Ok this was what I was talking about when I said iron door. Here is the link to the page.
1850. My grandma still had one of these operational while I was growing up. Sadly, it fell into disrepair during her lifetime and my uncle tore down the whole house down. In any case, the goal was that only one of the two prospective fireplaces be built like this. I'm not even sure what this is called. So, there's a problem in and of itself to finding resources.

 

[Ashful]

Caught me at a real busy time, but yeah... I love to talk old houses. There's another former regular here, @jharkin from New England, who spent part of his life as an old house nut, before "selling out" and buying a new house. IIRC, he had a nice fireplace with oven, etc.

What's historically accurate is going to vary heavily by region, and to a very large degree, from what country the builder and/or original owner immigrated. Ohio was settled late enough that your house may have been built by first or second-generation immigrants, bringing all of their "old world" preferences with them. We see a lot of that across PA, with the Germans building different than the Swedes or the English... they all settled this state in various waves late 1600's thru the mid 1700's.

There honestly aren't many ovens left on old houses around here, from which to get a lot of good ideas, measurements, etc. By the mid-1700's, most were converting from open-hearth cooking to cast-iron ovens. And because the most common ovens around here were built into the back wall of the fireplace, with the fireplace on an exterior gable wall, the ovens were an ugly high-maintenance protuberance sticking out of the side of the house that has almost always been removed by some owner 100+ years ago. I see a lot of windows or bricked-over sections in the rear of old fireplaces around here, where there had been an oven 300 years ago.

That said, the most common type of oven used around here involved building a fire inside the oven, rather than below it. Have your fire to pre-heat all of the masonry, then sweep it clean, and stick your goods to be baked into the warmed oven. The practice of modern wood-fired pizza makers, of having a small fire going in the oven all the time, may have also been used. But I've never heard it described that way. I'm honestly not an expert on it.

There are a few old houses in our area with working ovens, which are now museums open to the public. Two of them were actually my ancestral homes, but sadly I don't have any great photos or details on the cooking fireplaces. Usually they're roped off to the "public", which is all I am now that those homes have been donated to the parks system. The few that I can access, at least from memory, have all had their ovens removed and converted to just big open fireplaces.

My own house has two functional cooking fireplaces (1775), one shown in the avatar, and a third older one (1734) that has been repurposed as a foundation for one of the newer pair. They're unusual for our area, in that they're only 5 feet wide, whereas the others my family owned just 25 miles east of here were all much wider. Again, local customs brought with new immigrants, this house was built by Mennonites coming from Germany and Switzerland, whereas all of my ancestral homes were built by Scottish (1720's) or England (1690's).

I am told, and evidence of what appears to be "OEM" thimbles above the mantel in the kitchen supports this, is that the original owners of the 1775 addition probably never intended to use this cooking fireplace as any permanent long-term means of cooking. Cast iron cook stoves were already available, and just gaining popularity in the 1770's, so it's likely the cooking fireplace in the house was more for backup, in case that "new fangled" cast iron cookstove caused them trouble. However, it does appear the large fireplace in the summer kitchen was heavily used for open-hearth cooking.

As begreen noted, be sure you camera everything that's there real well, if you have any intention of re-using it. One of my fireplaces actually had a pair of oak timbers running right thru the chimney, about 8 feet above the hearth floor, likely aimed at hanging meats or pots to heavy to support on an arm or tripod. Also, it's very likely the exterior clearances to combustibles are not up to current code, which in most states will be a problem as soon as you begin renovation/alteration.

 

[Ashful]

Oh, and don't sweat the door, you can always have one cast to suit your needs. If you want working louvers, air inlets, etc, just steal them off a pizza oven door or outdoor barbeque fireplace door. Cattail Foundry has cast parts for me before, from a wood pattern, and they don't mind doing one-offs or short runs for hobbyists. There will be some post-op machining required for the hinge and latch, but that can be managed DIY with a cutoff tool, die grinder, angle grinder, and hand drill. Heck, you're probably already better equipped than the companies making these things commercially in 1815.

 

[bholler]

The Brick Bake Oven Page

Just a few I found there is allot of info out there and hundreds of different designs. Most are not much different than modern pizza ovens

Bake Ovens | Beehive & Squirrel Tail Bake Ovens Gallery

We have restored and reproduced many walk-in fireplaces, beehive ovens and squirrel tail bake ovens over the years. Browse our gallery to see some samples.

www.victorianheritageinc.com

 

[bholler]

Bake Ovens | Beehive & Squirrel Tail Bake Ovens Gallery

We have restored and reproduced many walk-in fireplaces, beehive ovens and squirrel tail bake ovens over the years. Browse our gallery to see some samples.

www.victorianheritageinc.com

Here is another